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Okay blog, we have to stop meeting like this. In my defense, there have been some big changes since I last updated. You know, there’s some blogs I read that are deeply personal and really open about what the writer is going through in their life. I admire those people because they largely share things I would never be comfortable with telling friends, let alone the internet. Though I guess it’s easier to tell strangers thing, as I posted about having ADHD on my blog before I ever mentioned it to most of the people in my life.

I’ve been trying to be more forthcoming with information about my life and maybe having this blog is helping that, but there’s still things I’m private about. Or maybe I’m just not ready to discuss everything yet. I’m not being intentionally vague to draw anyone in, I’m just taking a long time to get to my point, which is also unsatisfying and vague. I was supposed to be moving into an apartment with a friend at the end of the month. However, that is probably no longer going to happen. A mix of financial issues, health problems, more financial issues because of said health problems, and stupidity on my part means I’ll probably be heading to a small town with family.

There are many good things and bad things to this decision. I’ll be moving from friends and civilization, there’s no Chipotle in the new town, and my family is great but I was ready to live on my own. On the plus side the cost is less, I’ll be less stressed and more productive, and my family is pretty great and they have dogs.

What I will say is that I probably don’t have ADHD. Or maybe I do. As anyone who deals with any of these issues knows, one’s mental health can be confusing. There are many things like anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD that blur together or occur together and in medical terminology; it’s a bitch to figure out. So while I am not moving, I am hopefully going to be figuring out more about my lovely and annoying mind and how it works, spending quality time with the pets, and living a hopefully amusing life in a town where I may be the only liberal and vegetarian.

Wasn’t going to use a picture, but WordPress suggested this. I may have problems but I will not cut off my ear.

Oops. Again. So that blog every other day thing hasn’t really worked out yet, but this is better than never? The day gets away from me pretty easy. I won’t let it happen again (yes, I will).

I mentioned earlier that I was playing in a volleyball league. Or well, I mentioned that I was a bad player in a volleyball league and that is still accurate. I haven’t been able to make it to a lot of the games until recently and last week’s got cancelled due to impending weather: a tornado warning. I guess I truly am a Kansas resident now because when I was a kid I used to pack up my belongings (dolls, a blanket, the cat) and start heading to the basement at tornado watches but now it doesn’t faze me. Granted, If I was living in the rural area my parents are moving to I would probably cry every time the wind blew particularly strongly, but tornadoes don’t usually touch down in the city (knock on wood.) I was ready to head over and play until the second it got cancelled. The cancellation meant that my out of shape self had to play six games on Sunday instead of three.

It was murder. I exercise the same way I write this blog: sporadically. I was not ready to play six back to back games against teams that contained largely big and powerful guys while all I had to drink was beer. This shows you how bad it was because I never complain about beer. I plan to blog about my recent trip to the Boulevard Brewery later but we got free samples of beer there. I didn’t like all of them, but I drank them all down. I may not be committed to much, but I like my alcohol. So that’s something, I guess. The rest of my team seemed more enthusiastic about the beer the whole time, but they were similarity fatigued. So we lost a lot, obviously. However, I did figure out some things I was good for during these six brutal matches.

A Participant: I showed up ten minutes late because I was heading to the court from a different location and I got lost, so the first game had already started. There were only five other girls there so they were thrilled to see me because I was another body and technically I could be helpful. It meant I played every minute of all the games but at least I was needed. One thing I am still not good at is directions.

Server: I have a decent, pretty reliable serve. I cannot serve overhand, I cannot put much power into it, but I can consistently make it over the net. This was obvious because of the two out of six games we won, I got half the points in one game. We actually looked really good during that game, another girl and I scored all the points. Unfortunately, our spectators showed up later when we lost 15-2. Hey, I just realized that if we won two out of six games that’s winning 1/3 of our games. It doesn’t sound so bad that way.

At no point did I look this cool and focused.

Comic Relief: I screech when fast serves come at me, instead of yelling that I have the ball I yell “I think I got it”, and sometimes I just call out “oh shit” instead. Plus, I dance around to the pop music blaring any time I get distracted. This can be bad because, yes, a ball did come flying at me when I wasn’t paying attention. But I actually hit it better than some of the ones I was prepared for.

Drinker of The Beer: Well, everyone can do this pretty well. Next time we play I will be Bringer of The Beer, which is probably more of an asset from the team’s point of view.

I feel so accomplished every time I post on my blog, but that feeling is usually short lived because before I know it I’ve gone weeks without writing here! I blame it on all the changes WordPress has made because I need an excuse. I’m sure the changes are fairly simple to comprehend but just because I come from a generation that is stereotypically supposed to understand technology and the internet doesn’t mean I do. When I move out of my families house (in a month!), it’s going to be me that’s calling my father asking how to turn on gadgets and fix the computer, not the other way around.

My original plan after slacking off was a well defined “post more often”. Then I got too ambitious and decided I should try to blog every day, as I’ve seen some bloggers do. This is my ideal goal because I think it’d be great to post everyday even if it was something small and I’d get to see what the people I’m subscribed to are up to every day. I’m going to be realistic and officially set a goal to blog every other day. This shouldn’t be too daunting so hopefully I’ll be able to manage it. See you Thursday!

Last year, when I was a broke philanthropist instead of a broke waitress, I spent a year leading youth on volunteer projects for various nonprofits. This was an absolute blast. My job was basically to be cheerful, make sure the work got done, and that no one was bleeding. Or to administer proper care when someone did bleed. The previous leaders said they never had to break out the first aid kid. Me? Almost all of my summer projects involved a boy who said he was a Parkour champion in Australia. It was only halfway through the summer when I could predict he was about to do something and successfully stop it. I wasn’t there he dived into a creek and broke his arm but I was around when he did somehow cut his foot open in a kiddie wadding pool.

This kid does not matter to my story but he was at the volunteer project I’m about to talk about, and I will probably be telling stories about him until I die. I mean not everyone is an Olympic swimmer who owns several snow leopards, is related to all my favorite actors, and won a donut eating contest at the Irish Festival the same night I was there, even though I didn’t see the contest, but everyone knows that the Irish are synonymous with donuts.

It was the volunteer project I drew the short straw on. I was at an animal shelter with a majority of youth who were 11, and two teenagers that acted like they were. Our main duties were separating newspaper pages into two columns, removing staples from said pages, and stuffing envelopes. This is not a normal project, but we make an exception for this agency because the kids get to play with cats for thirty minutes at the end and operate a big shredder. The shredder is for the papers, not the cats. Secretly, I still thought the perks weren’t enough to make the project interesting, and the kids not secretly and very loudly agreed with this.

It was right after lunch and playing games when we were on the second half of sorting papers. This was the period when cat time was so close but still not upon us, and they were still silly from their break and dreading more newspaper work. At junctures like these the job of the team leader is annoy kids to death with peppiness, conversations, and riddles while they complete their mind numbing tasks. I was surprised how much kids love riddles, and how bad they were at them, but they weren’t having my distractions that day.

We worked in a cramped office with four other people and the kids were trying to find anything more interesting than newspaper pages to occupy their time. One child’s eyes lit up, or at least lost their glassy, bored look, when he spotted a box of desserts on the table. He asked our volunteer coordinator for one of the cookies he discovered. We were at an animal shelter, the cookies were little grainy yellow circles, and the box they were in had bones drawn on it. She offered him one and when all the other kids started shouting “eww!” he cottoned onto what they were. The volunteer coordinator snacked on one and asked if anyone else wanted one. The kids thought this was the grossest thing they’d ever heard. I know because they said so loudly and a lot for a very long time.

The treats came from a special dog bakery, a really cute store that my poor dogs will never experience because holy crap it is expensive, called Three Dog Bakery. I have no idea if they are national or not. Many of treats are made with ingredients that humans normally eat. The only difference is that the flavoring is not what we’re used to because the dogs don’t need it. So she explained that while they will taste different, it was just like eating any other cookie but the sugar and a few other ingredients were missing.

The kids still thought this was the grossest thing they ever heard. The dog treats were perfectly edible for humans, one kid originally wanted one, but no one would touch them even though they were all offered. Having them labeled as a dog treat was too repellant, and they could not wrap their mind around the fact that humans were welcome to eat them. They were “dog treats” and they couldn’t see them as anything else, even the kids that were curious weren’t going to admit that to the others and be labeled a dog biscuit eater for the rest of the summer.

When she turned and asked if I wanted one, I immediately nodded and popped one into my mouth. If it is a cookie and I am allowed to eat it, then I will eat it. I don’t even understand how there is another option. They were gross though. I need sugar. All the kids stared slack jawed at me and waited for me to sprout a tail and start barking or something. For the record, the weirdest thing anyone ate that summer was a live roly poly.

I suppose my point is that, when I walked into my aunts living room today eating a cookie shaped like a sheep, I was not all that horrified when I was informed that it was a dog treat. When I bit into it, it was kind of dense. However, it was also adorable and it had frosting and what looked like coconut shavings. I was told to help myself to anything in the fridge. It was in the fridge.

I did end up giving most of it to my dog. I chipped my tooth a month ago (and massively freaked out over it) so once I learned it wasn’t just a hard cookie and was meant for dog teeth, I shared. I did scrape most of the frosting off it though. He wouldn’t have appreciated it and I definitely did.

I tried to explain my summer story to my family, and that humans could eat these treats, but it was very hard to hear me over the laughter. See, that’s a true family. They got over being grossed out extremely quickly so they could get to the mocking. My mom started barking at me. My eighty two year old aunt joined in. My mom asked “How could you do that… No Nicole, how could e-w-e do that?” I wondered why they were keeping dog cookies in the fridge. My mom retorted with, “You weren’t even drunk!” They. Could. Not. Stop. Laughing. Even when my mother would say something incomprehensible, she would just recover with, “well at least I’m not a dog biscuit eater”. They kept saying woof woof. I turned to my mom and said we should probably leave and pretended to get up. My mom shook her head. I sighed and relaxed back into the couch. “Good girl”, she said.

After only two months of rapid cleaning, packing up the dogs, and vacating the premises on short notices, the house has sold. I can’t believe it. I’m not in shock over the place where I spent most of my childhood no longer belonging to us (yet), but I am literally amazed someone wanted our house. Okay, our backyard was redone and looks awesome enough that I wish we could have lived here throughout the summer. But someone wants our house that’s ten different colors and is probably going to need a new roof and some remodeling. It was built from scratch so it was designed exactly for us, it’s hard to imagine the house would appeal to someone else. The kitten wallpaper from my bedroom may be long gone, but the exterior is still bright yellow. I honestly thought it would take a year and many drinks before my dad finally lowered the price to put things in motion.

Our realtor says it’s now a seller’s market. This past week someone who lived two hours away saw pictures of our house, got nagged by their mother-in-law to put a contract on it fast, and by the weekend they kicked us out of our house at 8:30 am, and again in the afternoon. They got the contract set up in one day and just like that, it’s almost over.

There’s a bunch of technicalities to iron out, and apparently we’re hoping for a backup contract. Which means I still have to be in clean mode. If everything goes well my parents are out in July, and I’m moving into my new apartment in June. I’m so excited to move, but it’s weird that my parents won’t still be in this house. Maybe the new owners will let me use their backyard?

It’s that time of year when I walk into a new place and suddenly start sneezing. Multiple times. In succession. I don’t have one of those tiny, cute, girl sneezes that sound like a puppy, or a bunny, or some other small adorable animal sneezing. It’s more something like this:

I keep sneezing because I have allergies now. I developed them a couple years ago. They come and go rather suddenly. I almost forget I have them every year until I need to break out the Benadryl for a couple weeks. I don’t even know what I’m allergic to or why it started. These are the possible reasons I’ve considered so far:

Age: I went for 18 years without allergies, how is it fair to suddenly develop them? I guess it’s like anything with getting old, but I am still protesting. My body is a conformist and has to get worse as it gets older instead of becoming more awesome or taller or something. I’ve heard other people say that they experienced adult onset allergies too. That it happened just as suddenly as mine did and it doesn’t go away. Yay.

Location: Kansas normally has an increase in mildew and ragweed this time of year. The amount of pollen also does… stuff. I have no idea what I’m talking about. I can never figure out what I’m allergic to or if it has to do with where I live or not. I’ve been told that Kansas is bad for allergies because of– stuff. But I can never remember what that stuff is.

The Lords Will: However, I think we’re on good terms.

Change of location: I first got allergies the summer I returned from my freshman year of college. My uncle says it’s because I’d never lived anywhere else before. As you might be able to tell, I have no idea how allergies work so I can’t tell you if this is a valid theory or not.

Genetics: Neither of my parents are particularly prone to allergies but as I’ve often alleged, I got the worst traits from each of them. My father is a respectable 5’11’’ but I got my mother’s 5’1’’ height (which I round to 5’2’’). I don’t look anything like my Mexican mother but I do resemble my pale father who burns easily. So I’m sure their combined DNA could figure out a way to give me terrible allergies even though they’re both fine.

I’m Cursed: No. Too Melodramatic.

Pets: If it was them, I figure I’d be allergic to them more often. And I’d be screwed anyway because I wouldn’t get rid of the dogs.

Besides, who would get rid of that face? Well, someone did. But we aren’t letting him go that easy.

I do realize that other people have allergies that are a lot worse than mine. I generally complain once when it starts, start taking my Benadryl, and wait it out. Plus, this blog post gave me an excuse to post a picture of my dog. And he’s adorable.

In other news, I was a rock star at being semi-productive today. I got some writing work done, did my laundry (and put almost all of it back in the proper places!), and am getting closer to moving into my new apartment. The highlight of my day was when I discovered a diet plan that proposes because our genetics are relatively unchanged from how they were thousands of years ago, we should eat the same food our prehistoric ancestors did. My mother always pretends she’s dieting so I told her about this. Her response was, “You mean like dinosaurs?”

The days where I get ten hours of sleep are not the ones where I’m most rested. It’s only ten here and I’m already yawning and thinking about how comfortable my bed is. I sat down to write a blog post (two days in a row!), but I’d rather be sleeping. On days like this I wonder where the time went. I feel like I didn’t get much accomplished today and that’s because I didn’t. I have trouble focusing on one task, so my days are usually a jumble of half finished projects and wasted time. I guess all I can do is think of the positives. I received two free meals today (food would be where my mind goes first), it was a beautiful day outside, and I made plans to have lunch with a good friend tomorrow. Normally at the end of a lackluster day, I hope I can get my act together tomorrow, focus, and get some work done. Tonight, I am not hoping. I am determined to make tomorrow better.

Here’s a simple quote from Cougar Town that has been applicable to my life lately: “Nothing you really want in life ever works out, unless you’re in one hundred percent.”